


Rigged Rivalry

by Lutelyre



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, F/M, Rivalry, Romance, Sex, Shikamaru is a little bastard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1939122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lutelyre/pseuds/Lutelyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Such a perfect little love, split down the middle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rigged Rivalry

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Mirror posted on ffnet. I do not own Naruto.

Rigged Rivalry

X

And I never wanted anything from you,

except everything you had,

And what was left after that too.

X

When Shikamaru travels to Suna, he puts his life on the line.

It's very troublesome.

It's not that he doesn't deal with troublesome things often. Quite the opposite. The thing is, usually troublesome things are to be avoided at all costs, and there is a certain relish to the danger of this exceedingly troublesome activity, something that teeters on the edge of actually not very troublesome in the least.

-Nothing is quite like the sand seared scorn of a she-devil.

Shikamaru goes to her bed, on theses periodic diplomatic envoys the Hokage deems necessary to force him on. Her brothers know, and accept with a kind of concealed disdain mixed with hints of protective anger, though they say nothing.

Shikamaru scoffs at them. She would break their fingers like twigs if they tried to protect her. She has more strength in her limbs than her brothers have puppets and sand. She has more life than them too.

They are an interesting dynamic, the three noble Suna siblings. Violent and temperamental towards each other, glaringly sullen even in the best mood, they are a puzzle, but Shikamaru has other things to think about when he arrives in the windswept sand hole of Suna, wearing the Leaf headband.

Things like foreign papers and deceiving diplomatic smiles, stacks of treaties and water distribution stipulations. Things like the way her tongue feels against his teeth.

Shikamaru becomes taken in by her long lashes and sharp-toothed smiles. He feels her nails through the mesh of his shirt and her scent a haze his head. He lets her because he is lazy, because she is a spitfire sunset and relentless, because he is homesick for green and can sometimes find it in the blue of her eyes.

He lets her because it is amusing to leave her rooms in the early morning, hickeys red on his neck and kisses dark on her lips, and see the scandalized looks on the faces of those they pass in the street, eyes sharp with mistrust and bitter with disapproval because Konohagakure shinobi will never, ever be the favorite people of Sand, no matter how much their new Kazekage adores them.

Too much of Suna's blood has trickled from Konoha blades to let go of all thier grudges.

Shikamaru lets her because she is unfathomable and damn near unstoppable and that unabashedly stubborn quality has always been something he's admired in both of them, these blonde and blue-eyed devil women.

Perhaps Shikamaru lets her because he is an indecisive bastard, careless and bitter and happy as long as he's amused. People always seem to forget Shikamaru doesn't have a very large heart. Ninja don't have especially generous ones to begin with, and Shikamaru shrunk his down even more when something left he never thought he'd lose. Perhaps he lets her because this is a war his lovers fight by themselves, and though he the most coveted prize, he cares little for the outcome.

If they are honest, everyone in this war knows the outcome was long decided before the first shots were even fired.

But shinobi are rarely honest, so he lets her. Shikamaru has never been adverse to the losing side.

He is always with the winning team.

They fall into her crisp-clean sheets that smell of lavender and sandalwood and chamomile oil. Temari doesn't seem like it, weathered and snap-sparking like a honed blade, but she loves items of beauty. Soft, girly-sweet scents and powders and lotions, the things she can bring up to her nose or eyelids on dirt-stained missions and smile at for a few briefly snatched moments.

Shikamaru loves the silky coverlets on Temari's bed, and always pretends there are no shell-grains marring that smooth expanse of white weave. For the most part, he ignores the horrid sand sticks to everything in Sunakagaure. It annoys the hell out of him, but on a few occasions it doesn't—sand streaked across stomach and thighs and breasts, wet and sticky and friction-sharp—so he doesn't complain too often.

Temari takes him strong. (Because she always takes him, he is a goal to be achieved, a reward she desperately craves) She is as demanding and forceful as always, and he moans with sand smeared on his lips and a jasmine-lavender-wet scent in his nose. 

She revels in the sounds she pulls from his throat. Temari brands him with her teeth and tongue and longs to hold him, tight and hot and aching, forever.

The only thing is, Shikamaru will leave the next day.

X

When Temari comes, she slumps over Shikamaru's chest, caging him underneath her. She can feel the sand sticking to her narrow collarbones like pin-sharp needles. When Shikamaru comes he jerks- grasps her hips until they are white-marked and blue-black- grits his teeth and doesn't make any sound beyond a harsh, throat-wrenching groan. She listens for syllables,

But can never hear a name.

A flitting twist of frustration flashes across her face.

Temari doesn't know Shikamaru has never called for anyone.

Later, they will sit in her bed naked and wet and he will brush her hair.

He is like a servant, like a slave, but he likes her hair. It is soft and golden-smooth, like wheat and suns rising, like beams sparkling through a window-pane, like everything he doesn't care about in the troublesome world.

He combs through the thick strands like he is paying homage, because even if it is small, he still has a heart somewhere.

And oh--

Doesn't Temari love his heart? She does. All of that small and serious little heart tucked into the cage of his ribs, like a dirty secret. Every inch of his pinched and blackened and soot stained blood vessel.

(It is soot stained, because he smokes it even smaller; 1, 2, 3 packs of cigarettes a day, and maybe his hands shake a little, maybe his fingertips are yellowing against her skin, but that is just another thing that is lovable, so perfectly lovable, my forever darling)

But someone else loves Shikamaru, just as much, as perfectly much, and his heart is really too small for two.

It is a shame there has only ever been one owner.

Their actions are water through a sieve, but Temari drew the short stick, because she will never hold anything but droplets.

Such a shame, shame, shame.

Shikamaru understands. Genius is cruel; he sees through plots and ploys, and even some things he would be better off not knowing. But even though he understands, Shikamaru is too lazy and perhaps too apprehensive to break this monotony, these patterns that all three of them have fallen into against their better judgment.

He is nothing but careless and they are too prideful to admit the winner and too headstrong to consider defeat.

X

Shikamaru leaves Temari at the end of his mission, treaties signed and peace ensured, diplomatic duties done. 

(Sand under his skin and jasmine on the back of his throat.) 

She watches him dress from where she sits, legs open, on the bed. Her hair is practically straight as it floats around her head--shining in just-brushed glory.

Her eyes are glowing blue sunrises, tracing the movement of a shirt over sharp ribs, the slide of a heavy flak vest over bony shoulders. Shikamaru straightens over the sand-streaked bed and blinks--once, twice,-- as though in the afterglow there is something that blends two people together.

as though maybe he doesn't have the answers to anything at all, as though maybe his heart is even too small for one.

Temari sees the gauze fall in shimmering curtains over his eyelashes and something slices a cut into her chest, shallow-sharp and prickling.

She hurries to smile widely; a pointy grin that sets images clear and defines the fuzzy edges his traitorous eyes see.

(Temari wouldn't mind cutting out Shikamaru's eyes, really. After all, the only thing she needs is his heart)

He is dressed, and it is time to leave. Shikamaru whispers a short goodbye because shinobi are terrible at farewells and always have been, and he brushes her lips with his mouth before he leaves.

She kisses back. Temari is fervent and memorable, because she must at least be memorable, but when the door closes and his shadow vanish, she shudders. It is a tremble almost in disgust, almost in longing, while she runs her tongue over her teeth; His taste lingers in her mouth.

X

The noble-blooded, royal daughter of Suna will leave sand under Shikamaru's fingernails and kisses blooming like desert peonies on his lips. She will take him hostage to her body while he fulfills the duties his hokage demanded. She will try and try and try, and it is almost pitiful, because he will never protest, but she will never succeed.

She will fade to a dim memory,while another kunoichi with sharp teeth and snapping blue eyes takes up the space she filled and then some. Another woman will brand herself into his skin with slick heat and a moaning throat, and Shikamaru will do anything but resist.

Shikamaru of course, is quite happy to drift like a kite with cut strings, watching the clouds for faces that he doesn't really see anymore, because he can't remember their shadows.

These sales and battles are for the people who love him, and ownership changes every time. All they have to do is shave old skin from his muscles and wrap him in fresh, sweet-smelling sheets.

But Temari watches the door close with a click that sounds like a gavel.

Shikamaru will go home to the green he couldn't find in her eyes this time, and be lost to her while he does his duty to his village, that village that made Temari's peoples' blood drench the street, that village that killed something Shikamaru thought was immortal, that village which means more to him than anything and nothing to him at all and most of all that village where Temari doesn't belong.

And it's such a perfect shame, because Konohagakure is the only village Shikamaru will take.

The only time she belongs is when he visits, bringing with him a façade of papers and files and compromises. Temari gets him while he smiles diplomatically and spills tangled political lies to the council she protects, the country she lives for, the brother she will die for. She breathes him in anyway, but there had never been enough, because Temari always feels as though she is drowning. 

Their match was set from the first play, but Temari is courageous fool in love, just like her rival, and they are perfectly unshakable in the exact same way.

X

Five thousand miles is a long distance to cover. Before ten miles, her sand will have fallen from his skin to mix back into the desert, and her scent will have slicked into running-sweat. By the time Shikamaru steps through a tall gold gate and sees all the green he missed, the bruises she left will be long since faded.

Such a perfect shame, a perfect love, a perfect war, and a perfect little tiny heart that she never had a fighting chance for really, when you think about it, when you really think about it.

X

Temari gets up from the bed to go brush her teeth until they bleed. No matter how many times they kiss, she can always taste the flowers in his mouth.

X

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thank you for reading. Any feedback appreciated.  
> -Lute


End file.
